Lives Changed
by AshleeDemmon13
Summary: Being adopted is enough to make people think your weird, strange appearance doesn't help, neither do the magical abilities Leah posses. One day she realizes that with these abilities she can help children who need it by going into social work. While on the job she meets someone who knows about her and brings her to a whole new world, a world full of its own evils.


As stated in the summary this is very much a work in progress and that is because I have just started writing again. I have done this by taking an old character I had began to develop years ago and a new story idea I saw online. I don't really know if I will actually do any of this but I wanted to post this anyway. This is ALL the writing I have for this story so far but am going to try to continue it, especially if people really like it. I have to warn you though since this is basically just a draft and everything could change. Support/encouragement is appreciated but also please if you can help me out with ideas or tips I would be grateful. Hope you enjoy my little writing adventure.

Chapter 1`

While this had been the day that I was waiting for since I had started school over three years earlier I couldn't help but have the urge to sit in the car and wait. Wishing I could just read the case file as I had been doing for months now… the entire time I had been wishing I could be the one on field making a difference in these children's lives. The person I was supposed to be shadowing was already stepping out of the vehicle; giving me a look that seemed to say "Another one that isn't going to make it through their first day." Mr. Summer wasn't necessarily trying to be rude I knew, but many people who made it this far in the internship rarely made it farther than the first day. Most moved on to desk work, or something more background rather than see the horrible reality of some people's home lives. Thankfully this was a simple day.

With a deep breathe I got of the car and followed Mr. Summer to the sidewalk where he had waited for me to collect myself, together we walked the short distance to the door and I watched as he knocked, once, twice, and in the middle of the third knock the door opened. A girl not much older the 12 at the most stood on the other side of the doorway, dark brown hair pulled back in a messy bun. "Can I help you?" she asked with a nervous smile, my heart jumped for her, glad this was a simple home check and not a case of abuse.

Mr. Summer didn't seemed fazed he just kindly asked "Are your parents here?" As the girl nodded he then added "could you let them they have visitors?" the girl nodded again quickly leaving us outside as she hurried to go find one of her parents. As she moved I saw the other two kids in the house look up over the back of the couch and away from the tv to stare at us. Their eyes were the same color as their sisters, a hazel brown that when I was younger I would have killed for, my blue eyes caught to much attention growing up. The girl came running back to the front room and jumped on the couch with her siblings bringing their attention back to the television. The girl's mother came hurrying from another room apologising profusely pulling her shoulder length hair into a ponytail. "I'm so sorry I didn't realize what time it was, I thought I still had an hour before you guys got here." She had a genuine air about her that made me smile. Registering my presence the woman held out her hand in handshake "Hi, I'm Becky and these are my children" she gestured toward the couch "Ally who you have met and the other two are my boys Andrew and Joey."

The kids again peeked their heads over the back of the couch to look at us at the sound of their names. Mr. Summer smiled at the kids and I gave a little wave, "This is a new intern for our company, its her first day so she is just shadowing for a while until she can get enough schooling to do my job for me."

Him and Becky laughed while she waved us inside. Once the door shut she gave me a full once over "you seem so young how old are you?"

Smiling sheepishly I said "I'll be 22 this year actually." She gave me a 'huh' type face with a smile and then Mr. Summer and her continued their conversation about the progress and how she is still staying on track and meeting with her sponsor regularly. While they talked I went to see the kids, the two younger ones were fighting over the remote vying for their turn to choose the show. Ally didn't seemed bothered by her siblings tiff and was more interested in a book that had seen better days, I watched as she turned the page only to have the book lose a few loose pages to the floor, with a sigh she reached down to grab them.

"Could I see that?" the question was out of Leah's mouth before she realized what she was doing. The girl looked at you quizzically but still handed it over. As I handled the book I noticed just how many loose pages it had.

"Just be careful it's fragile and this is my only copy." I nodded and read the cover, it was a normal teenage novel that I could tell she had read over and over again. I leafed through the pages gingerly then closed my eyes and focused running my fingers down the spine of the hardback. Feeling the electric tingle in my fingertips I watched the pages bind themselves back into the book. Thanking her I handed it back and walked back to Mr. Summer's side. Noticing out of the corner of my eye as the girl flipped through the pages quickly with surprise. "How did you do that?" the question was loud and I cringed as her mother and Mr. Summer glanced out way in curiosity.

Looking her in the eye I hoped my lie was easily believed "I just pressed the pages back in, might not hold long though so still be gentle with it. It's just a quick fix." The girl smiled and went back to reading. Mr. Summer having finished the home visit looked at me expectantly, "is it time to go?"

"Yeah, lets get going Leah."

Sitting down on the other side of Mr. Summer's desk he typed away at his computer entering the information from today's visit with Becky. While we sat there he went through her file with me, she had just gotten her kids back about 2 years ago after completing her alcohol rehab after she had been charged with a DUI with her children in the car. Since then she has worked steadily kept sober, and getting full custody of all her children and supporting them with some government assistance, their father wasn't in the picture. He had gotten into things much worse than drinking. Mr. Summer kept reminding me that this wasn't the kind of cases I should get used to, they may have been on the poorer spectrum of things but they were definitely not in a bad place many of the other families and children I would encounter would be. "I think we can cut down Becky's visitation to quarterly rather than monthly, she's doing well and as long as we don't get any weird reports from her sponsor or boss the monthly visits just aren't necessary." Nodding I stood up and started for the door, before I could leave Mr. Summer spoke up again "I think you could do a lot of real good here, you connected with the older kid and your history is a good tool to connect with kids that might go into the system. I hope you make it." I gave him a sad smile, nodded and left without a word.

In the parking lot I thought about how it was only my first day and I had already broken my rule. I unlocked the Honda's driver side door and got in, slumping in my seat I cursed myself. I had decided when I first started school for social work that I wouldn't use my abilities unless it was absolutely necessary. "Life or death only" I reaffirmed myself, "or nothing with physical evidence." I had been stupid today. Mr. Summer had been right, this wasn't even a difficult case and I was already letting my emotions get the better of me. Starting the car I pulled out of the parking lot maneuvering through the the other cars coming and going. My one thought the entire way home was that I just used my abilities in front of a small family and someone who was my boss for the day, I was lucky to not get caught today. I couldn't take that kind of risk again, chuckling I thought how things like I had done today are why they started burning witches in the past.

Sitting at the dinner table I could see my mom bouncing in her seat, her short dyed platinum blonde curls jumping around her face while she attempted to eat her steamed broccoli. She had held herself back from questioning me since I had gotten home from my first day in the field. Dad was happily munching on his rather large steak that if I remembered correctly he wasn't supposed to be eating. I chuckled at them internally and played with my food with the prongs of my fork, finally I heard my mom burst "How was your first day sweetie? I never did get around to asking you." her cheeks were bright and I could see her crows feet from the smile she was straining to hold back.

Giving her a smile of my own I told her "It was good, nice family and I got to learn a lot about the computer part of it. The guy I'm working with is really supportive too." I conveniently left out the part about fixing the book, partially because I was under confidentiality and partially because they didn't know about what I could do. I didn't want them to ever know. I was their only child, and I was already adopted I didn't need to be a freak too. "Remember mom I can't tell you much more than that, they deserve privacy."

Mom scoffed at me saying "I know that Leah I just wanted to know how you felt about it." I could hear the question in her statement, 'are you still insisting on going into the field?' mom never really wanted me to be put in any type of danger, she wished that I would just do the desk work. I took some time to answer by eating more of my food, paying special attention to my pasta salad.

After I realized I had taken to long to answer and my dear mother was becoming restless I wiped my mouth with my napkin and said "I like it, I think I will be able to do a lot of good for the people who need help." She gave me a warm smile and stood grabbing hers and my dads empty plates.

"Did you still need a minute to finish your food Leah?" my dad asked studying my cluttered plate while my mom hovered waiting to see if she should grab it.

Thinking for a moment I decided "No its okay, I wanted to get to bed early tonight." Mom nodded and took my plate to the kitchen. Dad got up and looked around the doorway to see if mom was in earshot then he got close and quietly spoke to me.

"I'm proud of you for decided to stay in the field, just like you said, you'll be able to do a lot of good work that way." He patted me on the shoulder and walked out of the dining room. Yelling a thank you to my mom I headed upstairs to the bathroom. Once safely upstairs I took a sigh of relief and started the shower, letting the water heat up I went to my room and pulled out some fluffy pajama bottoms some family member had gotten me for christmas and an old t-shirt from my high school book club, it had faded lettering that read '2012 Jefferson High Book Gang'. On my way back to the bathroom I grabbed the biggest towel I could find from the linen closet, holding it close to me. The bathroom was full of steam was I opened the door, the air was warm and I could feel my hair becoming a humid induced mess. Setting my clothes down on the counter and my towel next to the shower I wiped the steam away from the mirror and untied my mess of red hair, it poofed up like a scared cat. Rolling my eyes at my unfortunate hair genes I connected my phone to our bathroom stereo and turned on music mix from my teen years. Taking off my clothes I got into the shower, sighing in contentment as the hot water rolled down my back.

Wetting my hair down I thought about how their would be more cases to come, and like how Mr. Summer had said, they wouldn't all be parents who were just being helped out of a hole. I would see horrible things done to people, and since my focus was on children I knew those could be the most heart wrenching of cases. Closing my eyes I started to lather my hair with shampoo thinking back to the first time I had vividly remembered my abilities, even though now looking back, I had always been able to do things no one else I knew could. I remembered the fear and even excitement. My moms sister had been visiting with her own children and we had been playing some sort of silly game, we had stuffed animals and we were pretending to be vets. My aunts daughter, older than her brother and I by about four years had always had a mean streak and she showed it this day, saying that mine and her brothers 'animals' were dead because we were bad vets and she was the best. As a child, and even now as an adult, I was very non-confrontational. All I did was lower my head and whisper she was wrong, and when I did so my stuffed cat actually started to purr and meow in my arms. My cousin looked at me shocked and told me to stop faking it, I even at the age of six I knew that stuffed animals really didn't make noise and that something wasn't right. I did the only thing I could think of at the time and ran to hide out of sight in the garden shed around the corner from the house. While in there I set the stuffed animal down where it eventually stopped making noises.

After that event I had gone back into the house and pretend that nothing had happened, my cousins never brought up the event again and neither did I. It was after that though that my abilities became more common, by the age of eight I could hold back the power if I felt it coming on and by 15 I had just started to be able to do stuff with my own free will. Since then I had mastered the skill and just by focusing could do almost anything I wanted with the magic. That discovery had been one of the things that made me decide on social work with children, if I wanted I could see if people were lying, or even protect children by making the people hurting them confess. Though after today I realized just how hard it would be to decide when it was worth the risk of getting caught. Frowning at my lack of control I finished washing and enjoying the water for one more moment, then I shut the water off, got out of the shower and wrapped myself in the oversized towel and got ready for bed.


End file.
